


Nothing Ever Hurt So Bad (As The No That You Said Back)

by thecoloursinthegravel



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:41:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7264747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecoloursinthegravel/pseuds/thecoloursinthegravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three words.</p>
<p>That’s all he needed. Three words and everything would be okay again.</p>
<p>He just needed him to say those three words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing Ever Hurt So Bad (As The No That You Said Back)

Three words.

That’s all he needed. Three words and everything would be okay again.

He just needed him to say those three words.

The room was grey and bleak and a shadow of uncomfortable silence threatened at the edges of the walls and the corners of the ceiling. The thick smog licked at his feet and he was certain his lungs shrank out of fear.

“Josh?”

Gone.

“Y-yeah? Yes, Tyler?”

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Good.” Tyler looked down at his hands on top of the table.

With the shadow erased and the smog now banished, Josh was allowed the sight of the yellow light of the sun through the half-opened blinds illuminating Tyler’s face. His deep, rich brown eyes that Josh would get lost in for days glistened and Josh could have sworn he saw specks of gold swimming in them. His tanned, warm skin lit up against the dark of his stubble. His strong jaw and soft cheeks just the backdrop for those plump, pink lips that he was busy chewing on. Those lips. It was only fitting that they be so beautiful, when they were the entry to his mouth; from where stories are told, people are inspired, secrets are made a bearable weight upon one’s shoulders and most importantly, from where Tyler could say

those

three

words.

“Tyler.”

No response.

“Tyler?”

“Yes.”

“Can I tell you some things?”

Tyler looked up at him, a closed off sort of expression on his face, neither uncaring, nor particularly interested. He nodded and looked down at his hands again.

“Tyler could you please- I’m sorry but- could you, would you mind please looking at me? While I say these things, I mean?”

Tyler slowly raised his head and looked Josh in the eye. His expression still holding back; his features unclear of emotion.

“I was, well, there are some things… I just- I can’t _explain_ them very well but I just, sort of, um, thought… fuck,” Josh lowered his head into his hands and breathed in and out once, twice, three times before looking up at Tyler again, who had not looked away or moved at all. “When you were… there… I, er, well I found it hard to be okay with, with that, um, so I started looking at pictures of you. Every day. Every day I would look at pictures of you so that you- you, um, you seemed close-closer to, um, me. In-in that moment, when you were. Well you know when you were, um, when you were th-there. At that place. Um, I looked at these photos of you every day and well, I suppose it wasn’t really every _day_ so much as… every few minutes. Because, you know, when you were not there you were, er, always-always here and I could look at the real you every, you know every few minutes. So I was, I was trying to emulate real life and, no wait, ha, um I know that it was real life, I meant, I just meant… you know, real life before. Before then, when you were here and not there. You know?” Josh looked into Tyler’s eyes pleadingly. Tyler’s face hadn’t shifted a muscle; he continued to stare. A heavy sigh escaped Josh but in all honesty it sounded more like a sob.

“I just wanted to feel close to you, Tyler. I just wanted to see you every day like I used to.” He looked down at the table then up at Tyler again, practically begging him with his eyes to just _say something, do something, please_. “I stuck the pictures all over the walls. The pictures of you. I put them… _everywhere._ It scared the others. It did. I scared people, Tyler. They thought I was going fucking mad. Tyler? Tyler? RESPOND, FOR FUCK’S SAKE PLEASE JUST RESPOND! SAY SOMETHING, DO SOMETHING, HIT ME, KISS ME, YELL AT ME, TELL ME TYLER, PLEASE JUST TELL ME!” Josh grabbed Tyler’s face and started kissing his temple, making his way down to his jaw and round to the other side of his face. Josh could taste salty tears and he didn’t know whether they were his or Tyler’s but they tasted like life had tasted for the past few weeks.

Josh finished kissing Tyler’s face and pulled away, looking into his eyes, searching for something to cling onto. When all he saw was the same guarded expression it made him break down into a sobbing heap on the table.

“I wish- I- There’s just-“ He couldn’t finish. “Tyler. I couldn’t keep looking at those pictures. They weren’t you, Tyler.”

“You should have burnt them.”

Josh looked up, straightening up in his seat and looking into Tyler’s eyes again. “What?”

“You should have burnt the photos. If you couldn’t look at them anymore. You should have burnt them.”

“I- I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it wouldn’t have been right.”

“That- That is the thing that you don’t think would have been right?” Tyler’s face finally let slip some emotion: anger. “You seriously think… That _that_ was the thing that wouldn’t have been right?”

“Tyler-“

“You think that burning what is essentially nothing more than fucking _paper_ is more wrong, more awful, more heart-shatteringly terrible than what you actually did? What the _fuck_ is wrong with you? How _dare_ you. How fucking _dare_ you say that.” Tyler leant forward, anger seething from every part of his face, voice lowered and biting; body shaking with fury. “How _dare_ you insist, suggest, even _entertain_ the idea, that those fucking pictures mean more than your _life?_ How _fucking dare you._ ”

“Tyler-“

“You-“ Tyler grabbed the side of Josh’s face with his left hand, not enough to hurt but enough to make sure Tyler had a firm grip on him, “Are more important than _everything._ ”

“Tyler-“

“I mean it.”

Tyler let go of Josh’s face and his expression turned back to its original, stony state.

“I’m sorry.”

Nothing.

“I’m sorry Tyler.”

Nothing.

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t- I don’t know why-“ Josh began to cry desperately again, tears rolled down his face in waves and his head began to sting. “I just wanted to feel close to you. I didn’t know how else to do it. I didn’t know what else to do, Tyler, I love you Tyler, I love you.” Josh clung onto Tyler’s shirt and buried his face in his chest, weeping in between mumbled “I love you”s.

 

“I’m not going to say it.”

Josh broke apart from Tyler to look into his eyes once more.

“Say what?”

“What you want me to say.”

“W-why not?”

“Because I don’t.”

“Okay.”

“I won’t say it. Because it isn’t true.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t- I can’t say that.”

“Okay, Tyler.”

“You can’t make me say it.”

“Say what, Tyler?”

Those

Three

Words.

“I forgive you.”

 

 

 

                    

**Author's Note:**

> Title: "West Virginia" by The Front Bottoms


End file.
